A Castle on Mars
by Pegship
Summary: Kate and Alexis are watching and waiting for a message from Mars. Takes place many years after the series end and calls back to season 7, episode 16, "The Wrong Stuff".


_**A/N:** A callback to season 7, episode 16, "The Wrong Stuff"; takes place an undetermined number of years later._

* * *

Kate Beckett-Castle leans back on the sofa, curled up beside her step-daughter, eyes on the television screen currently tuned to a feed only accessible to families of mission personnel.

"Do you need anything?" Alexis asks quietly.

Kate smiles at her, shaking her head.

"This is perfect," she says. The sun has set in the Hamptons, the only other people in the house are asleep, all is quiet. She's warm under a fleece throw, and Alexis is drinking tea that smells wonderful. She knows why Alexis is asking; Kate has been stationed in front of the screen for hours with her family waiting on her hand and foot. She could get up and serve herself, but she doesn't want to miss a moment. Let alone _the_ moment.

(She knows she was napping for some of that time, but she's alert and focused now.)

"Wonder what Gram would have thought of this," Alexis muses, and they grin at each other.

"I can just hear her. 'Richard! What on earth were you thinking?'" Kate says.

"'Not on earth, Mother. In fact, you could say the idea is out of this world,'," Alexis replies in a commendable imitation of her dad.

Both women laugh. Martha has been gone a long time now, but her voice can still be heard in their heads on occasion.

"Do you understand any of this?" Kate asks then, nodding at the statistics and chatter emanating from the screen.

"Some. My brain has been working on resurrecting memories of my physics classes. I think it'll be about an hour, does that sound right?"

"That's what they told me." Kate shifts, rearranges the fleece. She's not chilly, but she misses the warmth of her husband planted on the sofa beside her. It's been almost two years now and she still turns to make a remark to him before she remembers that he's gone.

She recalls, savors, the conversation they'd had about this. She, Alexis, and Lily.

* * *

_"I'd rather not just do this on my own," said Lily. "I mean, I've been cleared for it. But he's your dad, too," she went on, looking at Alexis. "And I think I want to confirm with both of you that he'd be okay with this."_

_Kate laughed. Alexis smiled._

_"Honey, said Kate, "he'd be thrilled. Ecstatic." Wherever he is, she added to herself._

_"It's brilliant," Alexis reassured Lily, taking her hand. "Where'd you get the idea?"_

_"One of our advisers worked on the first mission simulator. He said he'd met Dad once, and you, too, Mom. He asked how Dad was, and I had to tell him - he was no longer alive. He said he knew how crazy Dad was about going to Mars. So when I was confirmed for this mission, it seemed like a way to - I don't know, honor Dad and one of his dreams."_

_"Do Jake and Reece know?" asked Alexis._

_"I thought I should tell you two first," Lily replied. "Get the serious conversation out of the way."_

_"Smart move," said Kate. "Who was the adviser, by the way?"_

_When Lily gave her the name, Kate grinned. "That's the guy who had to give your Dad the news that he'd been turned down for the program."_

The countdown continues.

The ship landed two days - sols - ago; that's not the event Kate is watching for. There's a camera posted on the outer hull of the portable where the crew live and work, facing out, panning over the windswept, red-gold landscape.

Lily has coordinated with Kate on East Coast time and told her what to watch for and when. Kate knows she could probably record this and watch it later, but she wants to see it in real time. Well, real time plus seven minutes.

The door of the portable opens and the camera, detecting motion, pans down to watch the bulkily suited bipeds emerge in groups of two. Each helmet has a name in bold letters on the crown, and when the last head bobs into view Kate and Alexis smile at each other and applaud.

Lily turns and gives the camera a thumbs-up. It's the first view Kate has had of her daughter's face since the mission landed; her heart is pounding and she closes her eyes for a moment. Her baby, her firstborn, so far away that Kate can hardly imagine it.

_Your dad would be so proud,_ she thinks to her daughter.

* * *

Lily thought she was prepared for the quality of the light on Mars, but nothing compares to the intensity and color of it, even filtered through her visor. She turns and gives the camera a thumbs-up, mouths "Hi Mom" in case her face is actually visible on the feed.

Then she reaches to unzip a thigh pocket and carefully withdraws a clear, sealed packet no bigger than her palm. She grips it between two fingers and lifts it toward the camera, holding it for a moment in the thin blaze of the sun, then just as carefully tucks it back into its pocket and zips up.

Lily takes another glance at the camera, hoping her mother can tell she's smiling. She knows her dad would be smiling too, delighted that a pinch of the ashes of his former physical self was roaming the surface of Mars with his daughter.

Just as Lily turns to join her team, a voice comes through the comm - second-in-command Washburn, who knows about her "side mission" and has seen her pantomime to the camera.

"You coming, Castle?"


End file.
